Desperately Seeking Susan Cowsill
Sometimes the price of admission is worth it just to hear one song. Those with a keen sense of pop music history might agree. I’m planning to savor that moment and a few others when Susan Cowsill performs at Concerts at the Crossing in Titusville, NJ on Oct. 24.
If the name Susan Cowsill rings a bell it’s because she was the youngest member of The Cowsills, the bubblegum pop music-making family from the Sixties with hits like “The Rain, the Park, and Other Things,” “Indian Lake,” “Hair,” and “We Can Fly,” along with the theme song to the television show Love American Style. With her mother and five brothers, Susan appeared on such television programs as The Ed Sullivan Show, American Bandstand, and The Music Scene along with many others. And for those steeped in pop culture trivia, the band was the inspiration for television’s The Partridge Family.
Make no mistake about it, Susan Cowsill is no nostalgia act and anything but bubblegum. She’s achieved an element of musical hipness thanks to her stint as a member of the indie roots rock band, The Continental Drifters, a group that included such heavyweights as Vicki Peterson of The Bangles and Peter Holsapple of the dBs. The group recorded a half dozen albums between 1994-2001 before going their separate ways. Those albums are worth searching out. She’s also provided backing vocals to recordings by Dwight Twilley, Redd Kross, The Smithereens, Nanci Griffith, Carlene Carter and Jules Shear, while her compositions have been covered by The Bangles and Hootie and the Blowfish.
Although The Continental Drifters are no more, Susan carries on with her rootsy Americana-infused band. It’s not much of a musical stretch from the Continental Drifters, albeit a complete 360 from The Cowsills. Yes, Susan includes a Continental Drifters song or two in her set list and if you’re lucky, you may even get to hear The Cowsills’ sunshine pop classic, “The Rain, the Park, and Other Things.” And that my friends, would be well worth the price of admission even though I could say the same thing about her original music. Three years ago Susan released her first solo CD, Just Believe It. In addition to some finely honed originals, it includes an amazing cover of Sandy Denny’s “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” along with a hidden track of The Beach Boys’ “Don’t Worry Baby.” A new CD is in the works.
There are worse things you can lay claim to in life besides being the youngest member of the most successful bubblegum pop music family of the Sixties and one of the coolest roots rock bands of the past 20 years. Any way you slice it or dice it, or care to interpret it, Susan Cowsill has a most impressive musical résumé. I’ve been desperately trying to book her into Concerts at the Crossing for the past four years. Fortunately my persistence has paid off.
Susan Cowsill and her band appear at Concerts at the Crossing in Titusville on Oct. 24 at the Unitarian Univeralist Church at Washington Crossing, 268 Washington Crossing-Pennington Road. Showtime is 8 p.m. Tickets are $23. Kids 14 and under are $5. For information and tickets visit http://concertsatthecrossing.com or call (609) 406-1424.
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